“Shit!” My eyes shot open. “I can’t even have a romantic night with Adam in my dreams.” I picked up the phone, furious with Mike for interrupting my dream. “Do you mind?!” I shouted into the phone. “I was trying to sleep!”
“Whoa,” he said like such a dumb guy, he actually sounded like someone doing an impression of a dumb guy. “I’m sorry, did I accidentally dial my ex-wife?”
“I didn’t know you have an ex-wife,” I said with less of an edge, but still annoyed. “You never write about her.”
“Yeah, well I’ve got an ex-wife who would sue the shit out of me for whispering her name in a confessional,” Mike said.
“Well I can see why. You are completely rude and self-centered!”
“How the hell was I supposed to know you were still sleeping? It is almost nine o’clock. Some of us who have jobs have been up for hours,” he snapped back. “I wanted your take on last night.”
“Oh yeah, right. You are so interested in how I did in the class, right? Soooo concerned with how I handled it because you, you’re just so caring. You just want to hear about all of the hot naked women I saw last night.” I mocked his request with a dumb guy voice. “Take notes. Tell me everything.”
“Is this what you’re like in the morning? Here’s a free one for you, don’t let your boy see your charming morning personality. You need some serious coffee or Valium, or something.”
I sat up in bed and threw my blankets off of my body. “I do
not
need some coffee or Valium or anything. You were completely rude to me the other night.”
“What are you talking about?” Mike asked.
“I called you and you completely dismissed me like I was some sort of intrusion on your life. Like ‘So sorry, this is not a good time for me right now. I’ll call you when it’s convenient for me. Me, the center of the universe.’” I was pacing the house madly, thankful to be barefoot, lest he hear the angry staccato of shoe heels in the background.
“You are whacked!” Mike shot. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I was busy. I told you it wasn’t a good time to talk and that I’d call you back. Now I’m calling you back. Where’s the problem?”
His question was like a slap in the face. Not the slap of an abuser. But the kind of slap a buddy gives you when you’re freaking out. The kind of slap where you snap back to your good senses and say, “Thanks, man. I needed that.” I couldn’t say that to Mike, though. I’d painted myself into a corner and now seemed like the hysterical women he writes about in his column. I had to find an excuse he’d understand.
“Hey, I’m sorry, Dog. I was just having a sex dream and you called right when I was about to, well you know. You can’t blame a girl for being a bit cranky after that.”
“Oh,” he digested. “Okay.”
“Okay, like okay, you’re over it? Or okay like, ‘Okay, whatever. You’re whacked but I don’t want to get into it’?”
“Is there a difference?” Mike asked.
“The difference is that one is like, ‘Oh, okay, I can understand where you’re coming from and we’re fine now’ and the second is like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t really give a shit either, so I’ll say okay so we can change the topic and move on to things that I actually care about like whether the women in strip class wore G-strings or went totally nude.’”
“Uh, the first one,” he answered.
“The first what?”
“The first thing you said. The one about I get what you’re saying and it’s all good.”
“Are you sure?”
“Okay, the second one,” Mike panicked.
“Do you have any idea what I’m even talking about?!”
Mike began to laugh. “Look, I hear you, but I gotta be honest, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” At that point, I laughed, too. “Mona, I’m a pretty simple guy. All this ‘what did you mean by this, what did you mean by that’ is really wasted on me. If I say okay, it just means okay. Maybe this would be a good time for me to clue you in on guy truth number two: We’re really not all that complicated. If we say we’re hungry, it’s ‘cause we’re hungry. If we say we’re tired, we’re tired. We don’t do the whole subtext thing the way women do.”
“What’s the first truth?” I asked.
“The what?”
“Mike, do you have a thirty-second memory? The first guy truth. You said the second was that you people are dog-shit simple. What’s the first?”
“Oh, yeah. That we’re thinking about sex most of the time.”
“Well, then you should appreciate that I didn’t like having my sex dream interrupted.” I sank into my chaise lounge and kicked my leg onto the wooden armrest.
“Nah. So what was this sex dream about anyway?”
“Never mind. So who was over last night when I called?”
“Never mind. Hey, Vicki told me you got into it last night. Said you were kinda hot, Mona Lisa.”
My spirit free-fell at the thought of Mike and Vicki talking about me in stripping class. Certainly they had a few laughs at my expense. I wondered if Vicki offered an imitation of how ridiculous I looked. I wondered if he told her how much I was paying him. I wondered how the hell Mike even knew Vicki!
“How the hell do you even know Vicki?” I demanded.
“Shit, am I in trouble again?”
To an observer, it would appear as though I was doing nothing. I sat motionless, saying nothing. The nothingness, though, was the center of an isometric pull of equal competing forces. Part of me was furious, humiliated, and betrayed by the fact that Mike sent a mole to report on my performance at stripping class. I wanted to tear through the phone line, grab the skin on his face, and bang his head on a wall—repeatedly. Another part didn’t want to seem as though every little thing set me off. I had already spent my drama on the “what does
okay
mean?” ordeal. I didn’t want him to think that every interaction with me was going to be wrought with conflict.
“No, I just want to know how you know Vicki from dance class. You hadn’t mentioned you knew someone in the class already. Was she there to, to, you know, check up on me? Who is she anyway, your girlfriend?”
“Nah. Vicki’s my little sister. I told her about this gig with you ‘cause of the whole shopping and hair thing. When I told her about the stripping class she said it sounded cool and she’s always thought dancing would be an easy way to make money. So I told her where it is, and turns out she’s been taking ballet class there forever and never knew they did a monthly strip night. Anyway, I told her you were gonna be there but that you were shy about going so it’d probably be best if she lay low and didn’t say anything about knowing me. You’re pissed at me again, aren’t you?”
“No,” I said and meant it. “That was nice of you. I almost ditched the class before I even got to the door, so I’m glad I didn’t know your sister was there. It
would’ve
made me nervous. What did she say anyway? Did she say I looked like an idiot? She was really good, by the way.
Really
good. I wasn’t that good. Did she tell you that?”
“Nah, she said you were cute.”
“Cute?” I tossed the small scraggly fish back into the ocean.
“Good,” Mike tried again.
“Did she really?!” I reeled in. “I’ve never done anything even remotely like that before so naturally I wasn’t as good as Vicki or anything. Did she really use the word good?”
“Yeah, she said you seemed a little uncomfortable at first, but once you let go and got into it, you looked sexy, I mean good.”
“No, sexy is good, too,” I said. “Did she actually say sexy or are you just interpreting?”
“Hey, I got an idea. Why don’t you drive your psycho little ass across the bridge and let me decide for myself. I really can’t remember if she said good or sexy, or good and sexy. Who knows? Man’s gotta see for himself.”
“Very cute.” I smirked.
“Cute?! Cute?!” He imitated my voice. “Do you mean cute or do you mean clever? Cute or sexy? I’m not so sure how I feel about cute.”
A rapping on the front door interrupted. “Shit! It’s Greta,” I told Mike. “I’ve got to go. We’re supposed to go running and I’m not even dressed.”
“Mona Lisa, you are a Grade-A cock tease, you know that? Listen, call me later for Vicki’s phone number. She says she’s got time to take you shopping this weekend.”
Running down the stairs and toward the door, I welcomed Greta sheepishly. “I’m sorry I’m late. I overslept. I can be ready in five minutes.”
“Not a problem. Take your time, Mona.”
“Guess who I was on the phone with just now?” I shouted downstairs.
“Your future husband?” she mocked.
“Nope! Mike the Dog. I hired him. He’s my guy coach.” I giggled. “And guess what I did last night?”
“Tell me,” she shouted.
“I took a dance class.” I popped my head down the stairwell to catch her expression.
“Fantastic, Mona!”
“Exotic dancing,” I said, in a Barry White sexy low voice.
“Jesus Christ,” she sighed.
“Totally approves. Really, wait until I tell you what this stripper Kitten has to say about how exotic dancing is really the path to spiritual enlightenment.”
“Kitten?” Greta raised her brows.
“Kitten,” I said as I descended the steps. I felt like sliding down the banister on a single cheek.
“So, Dog’s your guy coach and Kitten’s your stripping coach?”
“Kitten wasn’t the teacher. She was the teacher’s friend.”
“I think you’re missing the point. You’re letting a bunch of house pets run your life. Dare I ask what’s next?”
“Um, maybe more soccer with the Kickin’ Chicks.” I smiled.
“Oh you’re such a little smarty pants.” She chased me, trying to swat me with a dishrag.
After seven weeks, Greta and I were running three and a half miles every other day. By the last week in January, I no longer felt as though someone was stabbing my right rib while stuffing cotton into my head. With my loss of seven pounds, I also noticed that my ass was joining the rest of my body for the run instead of following in a separate cart known as Hanes briefs. Greta insisted we have Sunday dinner at a health institute in Lemon Grove where people with cancer go to heal themselves with wheatgrass. On Sundays, they open their doors to the public for dinner. Greta seemed to think the three-dollar meal was a real bargain, but when a place is serving raw vegetables, “seed cheese,” wheatgrass juice, and some mucky water concoction called Rejuvelac, how much can they really ask people to pay?
To the great disappointment of my cynical side, I actually liked wheatgrass juice and started ordering flats of grass from the health food store. I bought a viselike contraption to squeeze my own juice and also purchased a vegetable juicer so I could become a devotee of liquid salad.
After our run, I invited Greta in for juice. “So, guess where I’m going this weekend?” I prompted Greta as I fed a carrot into the slot of my juicer. The metal teeth squealed with delight as it pulverized the carrot and spit an ounce of vegetable blood from the chute.
“Okay, I’m game. Where are you going this weekend?”
“Mike’s sister is taking me shopping.”
“So now you need a shopping consultant, too? Can you make any decisions on your own?”
“Says the mental health consultant,” I quipped, hoping to shift gears.
“Oh Greta, you’ve never even met Mike or Vicki. He’s okay when you get past all his bravado, and she’s nice.”
“I don’t need to meet Mike to know him. He’s a classic misogynist,” she said.
“Is that how you treat your patients? You classify them as a type and don’t bother getting to know them as individuals?” I asked.
“That’s a very different relationship and you know it,” Greta said as I watched her scan her brain for a reason. “When people are in therapy, it’s because they want to gain insight about themselves and understand themselves better. Any man who preys on vulnerable women, pretending to have valuable advice on the male mind, is a con artist.”
“Mike hardly preyed on me, and I don’t consider myself a victim of a con artist, Miss Claudia Schiffer’s assistant,” I smugly retorted. The noise of the juicer seemed louder in the absence of conversation. The air was heavy with awkwardness. I groped for any words to break the silence between us.
Greta said softly, “It’s just that I would’ve gone shopping with you for free. Don’t you care for my taste in clothing?”
“Of course I do!” I lied. The truth is that Greta maintains a classic professional style, even when she isn’t working. It worked for her, but I was looking for something in between her style and Vicki’s wardrobe of fireworks.
“It just seems your makeover is all about your appearance, and you’re not spending any time working on your inner life.”
I surprised myself and Greta by slamming my palms onto the brown granite countertop of my kitchen. “I
am
looking at myself! Didn’t I play soccer with you a few weeks ago? Didn’t I read those goofy pop psych books you bought me, and cull through the mountain of crap to find the few things that were helpful? Didn’t I eat garden scraps because you said a healthy body was important to mental health? What more do I have to do to show you that I am putting as much energy into the inner me as I am the outer stuff?! Just because I want to look better and put a little pizzazz in my wardrobe doesn’t make me shallow. You’re a beautiful woman. You can get all the male attention you want simply by stepping out the door. I can’t. You’ve known me for sixteen years. You know I prefer blending in. But now, for the first time in my life, I do want some attention, and I want it from Adam Ziegler, the man I love. And I’ll tell you what else, I’m going to get it. I’m going to do whatever it takes and get what I want. Greta, I love you dearly, but I make no apologies for what I’m doing. I’m going shopping this weekend and if Vicki tells me that an outfit makes me look pretty or sexy, I’m going to buy it. For God’s sake, Greta, I’m not hurting anybody. I’m not doing anything illegal or immoral so please, once and for all, get off your high horse and stop acting like I’m committing treason against myself for buying a few skirts and a couple of cute tops.”
Greta looked at the cup of juice, which was overflowing onto the counter after I madly stuffed carrots into the juicer without paying attention to output. I grabbed a cloth and began wiping. Greta placed her hand over mine gently.